Life
The is one of the six magical Realms in Master of Magic. This realm focuses primarily on improving a wizard's assets - both units and cities - making them stronger and/or repairing damage done to them. The Life Realm provides a wide array of Enchantments for improving units and cities, but has far fewer Instant Spells and Combat Instants. Other than the , it has the smallest variety of Summoning Spells in the game; Instead, the Life Realm is intended for use with large armies of Normal Units, which must be augmented by this realm's spells and lead by the few powerful support units that Life does provide, making such armies far stronger than usual. The Life Realm is strongly opposed to the , and may be either particularly effective against it or particularly vulnerable to it, depending on the circumstances. The Life Realm is associated with the color white, and the concepts of devotion, strength, protection, and healing. It is marked with the symbol, both in-game and on this wiki. The familiar associated with the Life Realm is the dove that appears at the top of this page. Overview The is the premier support color for Cities, Normal Units, and Heroes. There is much room for discussion over which Race serves a particular Realm best, but when one asks which Realm serves a Race best, the answer is always . Life realm Enchantments inspire units with heightened abilities and control travel between Arcanus and Myrror. They make particularly deft use of the game's and mechanics. On the domestic side there are enchantments to raise revenues, production, and growth, and eliminate unrest. There are some Instant Spells to heal the injured and revive the fallen. Summoned creatures from this realm are not cost-effective at all as primary troops; instead, individual creatures are meant to accompany an army and augment its abilities through their presence. The ultimate hero, Torin, is available through this realm and can either continue in this role or serve as a One-Man Army. In general, white is extremely strong in human hands thanks to its ability to produce great quality in the absence of quantity. Life also offers some direct counters to and magic. This color is so strongly antithetical to in particular that wizards are barred from owning Spellbooks of both types. Description Master of Magic's in-game documentation alludes in some measure to the existence of a Life Realm, and there are grounds for suspecting that good deities, or perhaps a monad of awesome strength, exist in the backstory and are now starting to make moves in Arcanus and Myrror. The planar landscape is probably suspended in astral space above and between the two worlds, taking the form of a sovereign utopia— civilized, erudite, and gorgeous. While this plane cannot be entered and explored, it is the source of all channeled by spellcasters, and the home of all Fantastic creatures of life. These creatures answer to prayers and may form pacts of allegiance with honorable spellcasters. If slain, discharged, or otherwise unable to maintain a link to the earthly realms, they return to the Life Realm revived to full power. Magic can be channeled directly from this realm in the form of light rays and divine energy. The Life Realm is tied as well to the revelation of truth, and is likely the source of intelligent mortals' "will to power." Aware of the potential in harnessing this school of magic for glory and civilization, priests and magic-users from among the advanced races study the Life Realm carefully. ;Familiar :A wizard with mainly Life spellbooks will take a Dove as a familiar. Doves are believed to serve as vessels for certain holy transformations. They have a history of usage in communion rites and augury, and to this day, they symbolize peace, romance, and even martyrdom. Realm Details White has 10 spells per degree of Spell Rarity, totaling 40 spells with a cumulative research cost of . Each member holds a discrete cost increment along the spectrum between (Bless) and (Charm of Life). White magic is heavy, almost to the point of exclusion, on instant and sustained spell effects targeting friendlies. List of Life Spells Rival Wizards When the world is generated, computer-controlled wizards each make a lottery-ball style roll for Personality and Objective. These traits modify the wizard's behavior, giving them some hard-to-resist compulsions and adding flavor to the match. If the wizard's shelf is stocked primarily with , this realm will convey influence on the rolls. In cases where spellbook ranks are tied, and the game needs to decide which realm conveys influence, precedence descends in this order: : Therefore, a default split-profile wizard like Horus ( ) will take a personality and objective corresponding to probabilities dictated by his sorcery ranks, not his life ones. Dominant Life ranks drive the wizard towards a Personality of "Peaceful" and an Objective of "Perfectionist" (but do not by any means guarantee these traits). The table below shows the chances each character trait has of appearing on a Life wizard, before accounting for the influence of Retorts. ;Peaceful :On the diplomatic scale of 100 to -100, a "Peaceful" wizard has a +20 Core Reaction to all of the other wizards, including the human player, and the chance this wizard will elect to perform hostile actions (overland spells and armed assaults) is reduced by 20 percentage points. As all diplomatic standings gravitate towards the core reaction at a speed of 1 point per turn, it is therefore easier to maintain a quiet, if not friendly, front with this marshmallow of a wizard. ;Perfectionist :A "Perfectionist" wizard has double the chance of initiating construction of a Town Building, and a correspondingly reduced chance of commencing work on a new unit. The wizard is also dedicated to throwing positive enchantments on his cities, when these are available. White wizards can usually be left alone in favor of more threatening opponents. While they will be very strong if allowed to prosper quietly, this realm does not give them any tools for nuking their enemies with crippling magic. White Diplomacy Modifiers Rival wizards make the following initial adjustments to their Core Reaction to a white wizard (human or otherwise): Example interactions: :Example 1: Ariel and Horus have a mutual Core Reaction adjustment of +40 ( owned by either side, with held in common) :Example 2: Ariel and Jafar have a mutual Core Reaction adjustment of +20 ( owned by either side) :Example 3: Ariel and Rjak have a mutual Core Reaction adjustment of -95 ( & ) Core Reaction can't fall below -90 after all factors are taken in. So the real adjustment between Ariel and Rjak is -90 in the last example. Fantastic Units The has only four native Fantastic Creature types, and a corresponding overland Summoning Spell for each degree of rarity. These units have increasingly-huge support capabilities and maintenance costs. They are a bit expensive to cast and maintain en masse. One Hero is also considered a fantastic unit of the Life Realm for most purposes, and is available through his own Rare summoning spell. The Guardian Spirit plays a more extensive role than the higher units in this realm. While a Magic Spirit may be cheaper, the Guardian is ideal for melding any Node that might come to be within a rival's reach. It can be taken as a starting spell in a variety of wizard builds, and makes a formidable combatant in the early stages of the game. The Unicorns, Angel, and Arch Angel are support-and-strike units, but the last two may be preempted by Incarnation, which is not only cheaper to research and cast, but also creates the mightiest unit in the entire game. Still, nothing is keeping you from backing up Torin with an Arch Angel. Good Champions Having at least one Life spellbook marks the wizard as sufficiently virtuous to attract the attention of the following high-grade Champions, either as random petitioners when he qualifies, or by summoning. Item Crafting Ranks in this color unlock the following spell-like effects that may be employed in Item Crafting, to augment heroes' gear. Spell knowledge allows combat spells to be Charged into an item. | style="padding:24px;" | |} White Encounter Zones By the odds, life creatures are the least common Fantastic Units to be encountered. The world generator has a chance of spawning a garrison of life units in the following Zones: Every lair makes a procedural selection of guardians through what is essentially a budget, when it can afford guardians. Typically there will be one or more high-end units of the lair's Realm (this is the creature sighted by scouts who peek into the lair), attended by a lesser unit type. The Ancient Temple, Fallen Temple, and Ruins will harbor creatures most of the time. The Tower can have anything; the world generator always places six towers, so about two-thirds of the time, a map is going to have at least one tower populated with creatures of . Note that a white encounter zone never ejects Rampaging Monsters. The idea of a horde of angels and unicorns attacking a village and cutting down every last soul in the place is, perhaps, an awkward interpretation of this realm's ideology. Any other unconquered lair on the map is a candidate for hosting this periodic event. Related Treasure ;Items Unlocked : ranks are needed to unlock no less than 103 of the 250 pre-fab items in the game. A full list of these, with their prerequisites, is located in this section of the main treasure article. :Most pre-fab Magical Items demand the seeker possess certain spellbook ranks in order to show up in Treasure. The spell-like effects that appear on these items, such as those listed in the Item Crafting section, are the cause for these requirements. However, the spellbooks required do not necessarily match the effect. For example, the "Chaotic Staff of Fire", apparently on account of having the powerful red enchantment Chaos, requires . We have to suppose that these mechanics are unintentional, because life ranks are needed for such an inordinate number of high-quality pieces of gear. ;Finding Life Spellbooks :Any spellbooks found in the Ancient Temples and Fallen Temples described in the section above will always be Life. Spellbooks found in Towers, Mysterious Caves, and Monster Lairs have a 20 percent chance of being Life. It does not matter what realm of creatures actually inhabits the location and guards the books. Related Wizard Skills Divine Power Divine Power requires ranks in Life magic and costs 2 picks. It increases the power and the pacifying effects obtained from Shrines, Temples, Parthenons, and Cathedrals by 50%. While it is redundant with Stream of Life, and lacks the synergy of with Infernal Power, an economy driven by Life magic enables these expensive buildings to be constructed in a hurry. Infernal Power may be found by Life wizards and yields exactly the same effect as Divine Power. The two retorts together do not exhibit cumulative effects. Warlord Warlord has no prerequisites and costs 2 picks. It lowers requirements, effectively raising the level of all units under the wizard's control by one, and unlocks higher levels for Normal Units. This is the ideal realm for this retort, most notably on account of the Heroism and Crusade spells. Through a Warlord, the former can be used to promote units to in the very beginning of the game, while the latter unlocks the level when cast. The retort also has synergy with Altar of Battle and the general emphasis Life places on Normal Units and the Cities producing and backing them up. Alchemy Alchemy has no prerequisites and costs 1 pick. It allows and to be converted at a one-to-one ratio, and equips all units built in cities with . Both benefits should appeal to Life wizards; the first because they can roll their strong tax revenues over into mana, and the second because they are likely to be building Normal Units early on. Category:Life Category:Magical Realms